At least since the publication of Burckhardt’s seminal study, the Renaissance has commonly been understood in terms of discontinuities. Seen as a radical departure from the intellectual and cultural norms of the ‘Middle Ages’, it has often been associated with the revival of classical Antiquity and the transformation of the arts, and has been viewed primarily as an Italian phenomenon. In keeping with recent revisionist trends, however, the essays in this volume explore moments of profound intellectual, artistic, and geographical continuity which challenge preconceptions of the Renaissance. Examining themes such as Shakespearian tragedy, Michelangelo’s mythologies, Johannes Tinctoris’ view of music, the advent of printing, Burgundian book collections, and Bohemian ‘renovatio’, this volume casts a revealing new light on the Renaissance. Contributors include Klára Benešovská, Robert Black, Stephen Bowd, Matteo Burioni, Ingrid Ciulisová, Johannes Grave, Luke Houghton, Robin Kirkpatrick, Alexander Lee, Diotima Liantini, Andrew Pettegree, Rhys W. Roark, Maria Ruvoldt, Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Robin Sowerby, George Steiris, Rob C. Wegman, and Hanno Wijsman.

Receptions of Antiquity, Constructions of Gender in European Art, 1300-1600 presents scholarship in classical reception at its nexus with art history and gender studies. It considers the ways that artists, patrons, collectors, and viewers in late medieval and early modern Europe used ancient Greek and Roman art, texts, myths, and history to interact with and shape notions of gender. The essays examine Giotto's Arena Chapel frescoes, Michelangelo's Medici Chapel personifications, Giulio Romano's decoration of the Palazzo del Te, and other famous and lesser-known sculptures, paintings, engravings, book illustrations, and domestic objects as well as displays of ancient art. Visual responses to antiquity in this era, the volume demonstrates, bore a complex and significant relationship to the construction of, and challenges to, contemporary gender norms.

The Renaissance Battle for Rome examines the rhetorical battle fought simultaneously between a wide variety of parties (individuals, groups, authorities) seeking prestige or legitimacy through the legacy of ancient Rome—a battle over the question of whose claims to this legacy were most legitimate. Distinguishing four domains—power, morality, cityscape and literature—in which ancient Rome represented a particularly powerful example, this book traces the contours of this rhetorical battle across Renaissance Europe, based on a broad selection of Humanist Latin Poetry. It shows how humanist poets negotiated different claims on behalf of others and themselves in their work, acting both as "spin doctors" and "new Romans", while also undermining competing claims to this same idealized past. By so doing this book not only offers a new understanding of several aspects of the Renaissance that are usually considered separately, but ultimately allows us to understand Renaissance culture as a constant negotiation between appropriating and contesting the idea and ideal of "Rome."

A Cultural History of Objects in the Renaissance covers the period 1400 to 1600. The Renaissance was a cultural movement, a time of re-awakening when classical knowledge was rediscovered, leading to an efflorescence in philosophy, art, and literature. The period fostered an emerging sense of individualism across European cultures. This sense was expressed through a fascination with materiality and the natural world, and a growing attachment to things. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Objects examines how objects have been created, used, interpreted and set loose in the world over the last 2500 years. Over this time, the West has developed particular attitudes to the material world, at the centre of which is the idea of the object. The themes covered in each volume are objecthood; technology; economic objects; everyday objects; art; architecture; bodily objects; object worlds. James Symonds is Professor at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Volume 3 in the Cultural History of Objects set. General Editors: Dan Hicks and William Whyte

The contributions to Discovering the Riches of the Word. Religious Reading in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe offer an innovative approach to the study of religious reading from a long term and geographically broad perspective, covering the period from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century and with a specific focus on the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. Challenging traditional research paradigms, the contributions argue that religious reading in this “long fifteenth century” should be described in terms of continuity. They make clear that in spite of confessional divides, numerous reading practices continued to exist among medieval and early modern readers, as well as among Catholics and Protestants, and that the two groups in certain cases even shared the same religious texts. Contributors include: Elise Boillet, Sabrina Corbellini, Suzan Folkerts, Éléonore Fournié, Wim François, Margriet Hoogvliet, Ian Johnson, Hubert Meeus, Matti Peikola, Bart Ramakers, Elisabeth Salter, Lucy Wooding, and Federico Zuliani.

The perception that the early sixteenth century saw a culmination of the Renaissance classical revival - only to degrade into mannerism shortly after Raphael's death in 1520 - has been extremely tenacious; but many scholars agree that this tidy narrative is deeply problematic. Exploring how we can reconceptualize the High Renaissance in a way that reflects how we research and teach today, this volume complicates and deepens our understanding of artistic change. Focusing on Rome, the paradigmatic centre of the High Renaissance narrative, each essay presents a case study of a particular aspect of the culture of the city in the early sixteenth century, including new analyses of Raphael's stanze, Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling and the architectural designs of Bramante. The contributors question notions of periodization, reconsider the Renaissance relationship with classical antiquity, and ultimately reconfigure our understanding of 'high Renaissance style'.

This is the first in-depth study in any language exploring the vast cultural range of instrumental music during the Renaissance.

Ten essays by eminent scholars in Renaissance studies to celebrate the work of Robert Black. These essays analyze education, humanism, political thought, printing, and the visual arts during this key period in their development.

This edited collection presents new research on the development of printing and bookselling throughout Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, addressing themes such as the Reformation, the transmission of texts and the production and sale of printed books.

For the first time, the pioneering book that launched the study of art and curiosity cabinets is available in English. Julius von Schlosser’s Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance (Art and Curiosity Cabinets of the Late Renaissance) is a seminal work in the history of art and collecting. Originally published in German in 1908, it was the first study to interpret sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cabinets of wonder as precursors to the modern museum, situating them within a history of collecting going back to Greco-Roman antiquity. In its comparative approach and broad geographical scope, Schlosser’s book introduced an interdisciplinary and global perspective to the study of art and material culture, laying the foundation for museum studies and the history of collections. Schlosser was an Austrian professor, curator, museum director, and leading figure of the Vienna School of art history whose work has not achieved the prominence of his contemporaries until now. This eloquent and informed translation is preceded by Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann’s substantial introduction. Tracing Schlosser’s biography and intellectual formation in Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century, it contextualizes his work among that of his contemporaries, offering a wealth of insights along the way.